La Follette, Belle Case (1859-1931)

US social reformer and journalist.She devoted herself to various social reforms, especially those involving women and children. She then became her husband's close adviser and assistant following his election as state governor. In 1909 they founded La Follette's Weekly Magazine (a monthly after 1914) to promote their progressive agenda; she edited the ‘Women and Education Department’ and wrote many articles. She also wrote a nationally syndicated column 1911-12.

La Follette was born in Summit, Wisconsin. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin, and after teaching and marrying her college classmate, Robert La Follette, in 1881, she became the first woman to graduate from that university's law school in 1885. She never actually practised law but used her legal training in her work with her husband. She took the lead in getting wives of Congressmen in Washington, DC, to undertake socially useful tasks and was herself in demand nationally as a speaker. She opposed war and was active in several women's peace and disarmament organizations during and after World War I. On her husband's death in 1925, she was urged by many to fill his seat but she declined, working instead to see her son elected. She continued to promote a progressive agenda as associate editor of La Follette's Magazine.